November Newsletter
Hi PFP Community,
It’s been a while since we’ve been in touch! We hope you all are well and looking forward to the holiday weekend. It’s been a busy few months, and we’re excited to check in and share some updates with you all.
It’s the perfect time of year to dive into a good book and follow it up with some even better conversation. The Betterment Book Club has been off to a great start finishing up our first quarter focused on “mindset.” We’ve been enjoying meeting new friends and sharing ideas throughout the first few meetings, and we would love for you all to join us as we continue on through the rest of the year and into 2022.
Next month we’ll be starting up the second quarter of book clubs focused on Emotional Intelligence with Go Suck a Lemon: Strategies for Improving your Emotional Intelligence by Michael Cornwall on December 14th.
In addition to a recap from the first quarter of book club meetings, we’re excited to share updates from the new podcast season along with more details about the upcoming book club, and a challenge our team has been working on.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
-The PFP Team
Betterment Book Club - Mindset Theme Recap
With the second and third installments of the Betterment Book Club... in the books… we wanted to thank everyone who joined and contributed to the fantastic conversations throughout the first quarter of our “mindset” theme.
If you weren’t able to join us for the sessions, but are looking to dive deeper into the mindset topic, we highly encourage you to check out the books. Here’s a quick recap of the few we covered in the series:
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
There are two core mindsets -- the growth mindset and the fixed mindset -- that shape how we see ourselves and how we respond to people, challenges, and events in our lives.
Fundamentally, the fixed mindset defines success as being mistake-free and that our abilities are fixed while the growth mindset believes that success is in learning or stretching ourselves and that our abilities can be improved to overcome challenges.
Neither mindset is permanent, we likely have a mix of each in different circumstances, and we have agency to change our mindset and to employ different mindsets depending on the situation or area of our lives.
Start with Why by Simon Sinek
Every one of us individually and every organization understands what we do, and it’s typically our first instinct to focus on the what vs the why. However, inspirational leaders focus first on why they do what they do before moving on to the how and what.
When we focus on the why, we don’t have to rely on manipulation to inspire others to act. Our why provides a foundation and lens in which to take on advice and make decisions.
The concepts in Start with Why can be applied across such a wide spectrum, and generated some lively and deep discussions with the group.
212 The Extra Degree by Mac Anderson and Sam Parker
Sometimes, just one extra degree of effort can make the difference between good results and extraordinary results.
One degree can make the difference between water just being hot, or boiling. Boiling water creates steam, and steam can power a locomotive. 212 explores many different examples and stories that can inspire us to take that next step towards the extraordinary from the ordinary.
212 was a great book to cap off the mindset series, and revisit some of the concepts we got started with the first two books.
The range of perspectives shared from so many different incredible people in these first book clubs has been invaluable, and we are so grateful to all of you who invested the time to read the books and engage in the conversations. We hope you’ve enjoyed the sessions as much as we have!
It’s been great networking with so many of you from around the country, and we look forward to picking things back up in just a few weeks.
It’s never too late to join us for the next meeting! Just register here.
Betterment Book Club - Emotional Intelligence Quarterly Theme
Looking ahead to our next book club series, we’re excited to focus on a theme that is central to the PFP mission, Emotional Intelligence.
It’s a topic that our team is particularly passionate about, and we will be looking at EQ from many different angles with the Betterment crew. Expect lively discussions, tips and tricks, and great books from thought leaders in the space.
There’s so much to dive into with EQ, and we’ll be opening up the series with Go Suck a Lemon: Strategies for Improving your Emotional Intelligence by Michael Cornwall on December 14th at 8pm EST/7pm CST.
You can sign up here to join the book club registration list if you haven’t already -- this is where you’ll get updates and invitations for December and all future meetings.
The People First Podcast
We are now 7 episodes into Season 3 of The People First Podcast after kicking back off in October, and episodes have spanned a number of great topics from people-based vs results-based cultures to finding your tribe and understanding the human side of learning. Looking back, here are a few highlights from the first episodes of Season 3.
Our friend, Em Radkowski, started off the season with a fantastic first episode where she shared her personal story and perspective on work life balance with us. Like all the episodes this season, it’s a must listen.
A few highlights from the conversation with Em:
-"I realized what was wrong with me, was that I thought something was wrong with me."
-"I found communities of like minded people and sought out guidance and mentorship."
-The importance of caring for your heart and your mind; therapy, meditation, journaling, etc. Not just physical exercise alone
Our next episode featured another friend of ours, Sweetie Browne, who shared her story and experience with us about finding a tribe -- both personally and professionally. It’s another can’t miss!
A few highlights from our conversation with Sweetie:
-Tribes are a safe place to seek advice and ask for help, across personal and professional lines
-You have to be prepared to extend yourself, to share of yourself, if you want to attract other like-minded folks, not just your professional self, but personal goals, hobbies, desires
-Servant leadership mindset and actions creates and attracts tribes
-Practice articulating your story, your passions, strengths and how you desire to help others
You can check out these episodes and the rest of Season 3 here, or anywhere you like to catch your podcasts. Subscribe to get the latest updates as we launch new episodes weekly.
Start With Why - Additional Resources
In wrapping up the theme of mindset, and specifically starting with why, we wanted to share a couple of our favorite videos from Simon Sinek. In the first, Simon shares the story behind the genesis of the Start with Why philosophy and his own experience in living it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRaqe9M2DYc
In this second video, Simon shares one way we can find our why -- a great personal challenge for all of us.
November Challenge
Finally, we wanted to leave you all off with a challenge that we at PFP have been exploring over the past few weeks. We’ll be sharing additional challenges in newsletters going forward, but we encourage you all to take some time to meditate on, journal about, or just spend some time in thought with each of these prompts as an exercise in self awareness and self exploration.
Challenge for the month: Trust
For some of us trusting others is difficult, for some it comes very easily. But according to research the more important the responsibility (think monetary, career, children) the more we struggle with trusting others with these tasks. Makes sense right?
Well diving into this is a huge lesson and deep dive into self awareness, self management and relationship management, 3 of the 4 core tenants of EQ.
So the PFP leaders were challenged to think about and document:
What are you NOT trusting others with, that you know you probably could/should?
Now the scary part; Why are you not trusting others with these things? Is it a mistrust in the person, is it a bias you carry, is it something you are projecting on others, is it hubris in your own skills?
Finally, now that you have pinpointed a few areas and dove into the WHY, document what you are going to do differently to change it
As a leader and operator of a business and an A-type perfectionist, I personally struggle with this. When the stakes are high, I trust myself to get the job done. But this doesn’t scale which impacts my personal life, my working hours, my stress, etc. I also know I hire great people for a reason and to do a job. So do I deep-down doubt my hires and leaders? NO!
It’s about me, it’s about trust, and it’s about letting go. I have now taken action and delegated several incredibly critical initiatives with my key leaders, built a plan to support and enable them and meditated a few times to make sure I don’t go back on my promise and start mico-managing :)
Enjoy!
-Devin
